Candy in the Sack Read Free

candy you want. I’m pretty well stocked at the moment.”
    Still no answer.
    A thread of worry laced through his thoughts. Knowing the local kids, that should have sealed the deal for them. He stepped away from the door into the cool night air, moving toward the bushes. A probing nudge with his foot sent one of the neighborhood’s cats, a disreputable silver tabby with a torn ear, fleeing across the lawn’s dead leaves and disappearing as though it had been discovered in some desperate act of sabotage.
    That didn’t explain the doorbell, though. As a general rule, cats couldn’t reach that high. Bryan closed the door and returned to the couch, leaving the television muted.
    Less than a minute passed, and he knew somebody was still out there; he could hear the person, whoever it was, creeping stealthily around the corner of the house.
    Again, the doorbell rang. This time, he took with him the iron poker from beside the fireplace.
    “Trick or treat.”
    With his hand on the inside knob, he looked out at the figure standing on the doorstep. “Little late for this sort of thing, isn’t it?” He dryly spoke the admonishment. “Do your parents know you’re still out?”
    “No,” said Sherri from behind a green, warted and hook-nosed witch’s mask. “I put a spell on them. Frogs don’t look at the clock.”
    The drizzling rain had stopped a while ago. Moonlight, falling past fragmented clouds, silvered the empty wet street. “I thought,” said Bryan, “that you were supposed to be in Milwaukee by now.” He set the poker down in the corner beside the door.
    “That’s somebody else you’re talking about.” A few last drops of rain spotted the shoulders of the black cloak the witch wore. “While she’s away, I’m here on an errand of occult importance.”
    “Really?” Bryan raised an eyebrow. “Sounds heavy. Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”
    “All depends, pal.”
    “On what?”
    The grinning green mask didn’t change expression as the witch shrugged. “On your definition of good and bad. When I’m a good witch, I’m very, very good; but when I’m a bad witch, I’m even better.”
    “Har har. I’ve heard that one before.”
    “Well, maybe I’ll just have to show you.” The black cloak rustled and parted. “How’s that for starters?”
    “Not bad.” Seeing his wife stark naked, except for a pair of black pumps with three-inch heels, was always a pleasure.
    The dark backdrop of the cloak made her skin seem luminous, as though lit from within. “That’s the kind of thing that could bring witchcraft back into style.”
    “It’s never gone out,” said the witch with Sherri’s voice. “Give a witch a little privacy, and I’ll show you.”
    Bryan reached beside the door and turned off the porch light. “How’s that?”
    “You won’t be sorry.” The witch knelt down in front of him. “That’s a promise.”
    He could still hear the television murmuring from somewhere far behind him, as though the house’s living room had been picked up and relocated to another time zone. The little noises of the night outside, an almost imperceptible wind sighing past leafless branches, seemed realer and closer to him. He rested his hands on the witch’s bare shoulders and tilted his head back. From underneath his partially lowered eyelids, he could see that the cloak had slipped away and lay in an even darker shape around her like the petals of a night-blooming flower. Her nakedness was the center of that blossom.
    A grinning face looked up at him. The green mask lay on the folds of the cloak, where the witch had tossed it. Now, the mask’s eyes were empty and just as dark, no longer colored blue the way Sherri’s eyes were.
    The night air touched the base of his stomach as the witch undid the fly of his trousers. Her hands rounded Bryan’s hips on either side, fingers sliding first beneath the waistband and then the elastic of Bryan’s shorts. The sharper edges of her fingernails drew